How Many Women Pray, "God forgive me. I had a hysterectomy."
When it comes down to it, anti abortion religion is about controlling women, period. Women are controlled when they have more babies. More babies are more money for clergy. In short, controlling women is job security for male clergy.
The link is a written by a Catholic woman who has long been active for reproductive rights. She is joined by about 60% of Catholics who oppose reversing Roe. She was surprised herself at what a strong hold her priests had on her emotions when faced with an inevitable decision to have a hysterectomy.
She writes that when doctors finally concluded that the only way to fix the pain she had suffered for a long time was removal of her reproductive organs she could not stop her mind from remembering the endless sermons about women. What makes a woman different from a man, she had learned from childhood, was her reproductive organs. She was put on earth to have babies. She was not put here for her brains or for whatever she might contribute to the common good. She was a vessel for babies, period.
Her mind went back to John Paul II. He was skilled at promoting an indirect way to provide job security for male clergy. He called women's ability to become pregnant "female genius." Women needed to acknowledge their "genius" to understand why they cannot be clergy.
John Paul II didn't like women's liberation or the growing Protestant practice of endorsing women clergy. God had explained to women what their role in humans was to be when he gave them the uterus. This female organ provided them with capacity to nurture, gestate and give birth. The uterus taught women what their essential purpose is and what it is not. It is to pop out babies. It is not to think and speak as equals to men.
Absurd as this thinking is, it affected the author when she faced a hysterectomy. Will God be angry when I remove the only justification for why I exist? she wondered.
It's time to leave behind Mid Evil thinking. Helpful also would be for all to recognize the efforts of men over centuries to exert power and authority over women. When we see this happening in the Bible it is the opportunity to remove ideas and practices that are harmful and replace them with others that are helpful.
Jon,
ReplyDelete“Women needed to acknowledge their "genius" to understand why they cannot be clergy.” Great sentence. Many of us are replacements for war dead. Some large families of boomers are grateful mom acknowledged her genius and didn’t become a priest.
“Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed into a law a bill outlawing abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, joining at least a dozen other states that have enacted measures designed to prohibit the procedure early in a patient's pregnancy. But unlike the other so-called "heartbeat" bills, Texas's has a provision that would allow private citizens to file civil lawsuits against doctors, staff, or even a patient's family or friends who "aid and abet" in such procedures.
Jon, they are closing in on your nightmare scenario, womb cops and anti-abortion vigilantes. Does this mean in Texas a six week old fetus is not a person but if it is you can “murder” it, as pro-lifers say. Now there’s some “cancel culture” all righty.
¹ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-abortion-ban-six-weeks-abbott-signs/
Ardy B. "womb cops and anti-abortion vigilantes." We should have a betting pool, the winner correctly picks the day when the first murder charges are filed against a woman who had a miscarriage. Perhaps the protestors at abortion clinics will be deputized as "Miscarriage Texas Rangers." First, though, the names, soc. sec., phones and addresses of every woman who has seen a doctor about her pregnancy will be put into a data base. Each "Texas Ranger" will be assigned some women to watch. Abortion protestors have been doing something similar for decades. They have taken pictures of women entering clinics and calling their priests/pastors and family.
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